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)EIITEr.KD IN THE FlRSl CHURCH IN Gf.OYELANP, 

June 22, 1867. 



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BY JEREMIAH SPOFFORD, WI. M. S. 




HAVERHILL: 

E. G. rr.CTHINGHAM, PRINTER, GAZETTE OTFICE. 
18 6 7. 



REMINISCENCES. 



I esteem it among the signal blessings of my life, that I am 
preserved to stand before you this evening, and look back over the 
long term of seventy years, fifty of which have been spent in this 
place, and recount to this audience the events of times, which in 
my youth, were to me, all dark futurity. 

Fifty years is a long term in the measure of .human life. The 
end of half a century finds very few on the stage of active life. 
who were so at its commencement. It is almost one-fifth of the 
time since the landing of the fathers at Plymouth, and covers 
more than twelve presidential terms. In hearing this review you 
are holding intercourse with one who has been an observer of 
current events, and a reader of the public papers for more than 
seventy years, with what degree of diligence and intelligence, ray 
acquaintance and hearers must judge. 

Four generations intervene, in a direct line, between that John 
Spofford who crossed the Atlantic with Rev. Ezekiel Rodgers, in 
1638, and myself. John, the emigrant, died in 1678 ; his son 
John, born October 24, 1648, died April 22, 1697 ; his son, of 
the same name, born January 12, 1678, died October 4, 1735 ; 
his son Eliphalet, born 1725, died October 7, 1776 ; his son Jere_ 
miah, born 1749, was my father. A line of longer lives — Samuel, 
who was contemporary with the first settler for fifteen years, and 
lived ninety-one years, and Col. Daniel Spofford, who lived eighty- 
three years, and died in 1809, bridge the chasm between the first 
settler and myself, and render verbal communication, in living 
language, possible between us, and we have a tradition of an inter- 
esting anecdote in the life of the emigrant, which I put in print 
some years ago, handed down in that line. 

As this performance relates principally to myself, and my own 
experiences, a d gree of egotism may be allowable, and some 
account of my youth and education may be expected. 



4 REMINISCENCES. 

I was born at Rowley, now Georgetown, December 8, 1787, at 
the close of that memorable year which gave birth to the consti- 
tution of the United States. Preparation, ratification, and elec- 
tions, took up the next year, 1788. Washington took the oath of 
office April 30, 1789. So it appears that I have lived through the 
whole term of all the Presidents, and hope I may be sustained to 
see the end of the term of the present Vice-President. I was • 
nine years old when Washington's term expired, and recollect my 
displeasure when I learned that John Adams had the office, which 
I had supposed belonged only to Washington. I distinctly remem- 
ber the times and many circumstances of all the Presidents who 
have filled that office. And it is worthy of remark that all the 
Presidents, who have been elected as such, have so administered 
the office as to give general satisfaction to those by whose votes 
they were elected, which has signally failed to be the case with all 
of the Vice-Presidents, who have been called to the higher office. 

I have been a reader of the papers since 1795. The lively 
interest taken by all my friends and relatives in public affairs soon 
after the revolution, the French revolution, and the career of 
Napoleon Bonaparte, which kept the world in arms for twenty- 
five years, up to 1815, gave me that deep interest in political 
matters which has never left me. But it is not merely Irom taste 
and habit that I still take an interest in what is passing. I have 
long observed that those who cease to take an interest in the 
affairs of the world, soon cease to live in it ; and that those who 
do not use whatever strength of body or mind they possess, soon 
have none of either to use. My earliest taste for books and thirst 
for knowledge was inspired by an excellent female teacher, Miss 
Sally Wood, of Boxford, under whose kind parental care I had the 
good fortune to be placed, when seven or eight years old, for 
several of the summer months in succeeding years. How she 
acquired her education I do not know, but only know that she had 
all the learning we were capable of receiving, and a facility of 
imparting it to her pupils which all the Normal schools in Massa- 
chusetts could never bestow. It is worthy of remark, that another 
physician, Dr. R. S. Spofford, of Newburyport, whose age and 
acquirements give his opinion great weight, retains the same 
impression of this excellent lady, to whose capacity as a teacher 
this late and humble tribute is justly due. 



REMINISCENCES. O 

It 'would give roe much pleasure, here to give incidents of aca- 
demical experience and college honors, but such it was not my 
fortune to share. The only son of a small farmer, who had not 
cash or farm income to hire sufficient help, I was almost bound to 
the farm. True, it is hard to be confined to agricultural or me- 
chanical labor in the spring-time of life, when one has au ardent 
thirst for study and knowledge, and sees his eompamons have 
time and money to be. acquiring learning and credit in "academic 
shades and college halls, " yet I have since learned that the advan- 
tage is not wholly on one side. Privation of time for study creates 
a more ardent thirst for knowledge, -and a better improvement of 
wh;ttever time is enjoyed. If books are few, those few are more 
thoroughly studied and better remembered. My earliest estimate 
of the value of money was by the paper and books it would pur- 
chase. The first dollar I ever owned I earned by constructing and 
selling a clock reel, necessary in those days to measure the skeins 
of yarn our mothers and sisters spun. I walked four miles to this 
village and purchased with it a Bible, a slate, and a quire of paper, 
at the full variety store of Mr. Moses Parker, well known in those 
days. 

My next acquisitions were Dwight's Geography, Columbian Ora- 
tor, Art of Reading, English and Latin Grammars, Virgil, and 
Cicero's Orations, in Latin and English. I attended the town 
schools in winter, those schools so much disparaged and misrepre- 
sented by those who think Horace Mann was the " founder of the 
free school system of this State." I had for teachers, among 
others, the late venerable Dr. Joshua Jewett, of Rowley, whose 
recent death, at ninety years of age, has given many still living an 
opportunity to know his worth, also Samuel Adams, Esq., several 
years teacher of a classical school in Salem, and Preceptor of 
Dammer Academy, — men whose excellence no later teachers can 
excel. 

My labors on the farm were not severe, and the mornings, 
noons, and nights of those farming days, afforded more hours for 
study than I was then disposed to give credit for. Students from 
Harvard College, aud other private students, resided for longer or 
shorter times with our clergyman, Rev. Isaac Braman With 
• these I was often on intimate terms, and with their miscellaneous 
books and college classics I was often perhaps nearly as well 



b REMINISCENCES. 

acquainted as their owners. Ferguson's Astronomy, an octavo 
volume, with plates, intruded hard upon my hours of labor— a 
glorious science, which came to me fresh in the work of that great 
author, instead of being frittered down in some insignificant abridge- 
ment for children, by some author comprehending it little more 
than they. Adams's Natural and Experimental Philosophy, five 
volumes with plates, was studied in this manner with an intenser 
interest than I could ever feel when in later life I had more time 
and more books. In connection with these studies, during one of 
my frequent visits at Mr. Peabody's, at Danvers, I made my way 
to the residence of Dr. Prince, of Salem, minister of the First 
Church, known as a distinguished scholar, who received me with 
great kindness, and entertained me with many experiments with 
the air-pump. 

A small parish library, given by the first pastor of that church, 
the Eev. James Chandler, mostly religious, led me through a 
course of theological studies, which I am quite sure very few 
young men of that day or this have pursued, unless with direct 
reference to the clerical profession. When I was about eighteen 
years old, I circulated a paper, drawn up by my friend Samuel 
Adams, before named, and favored by Mr. Braman, for a miscella- 
neous library. We obtained nearly a hundred volumes, the read- 
ing of which I nearly completed while resident there. 

When I was fifteen years old, I was placed with a brother-in-law 
A. J. Tenney, Esq., to learn the art and mystery of making shoes, 
but, though with excellent people, and every comfort but books 
and time to read them, the winter of 1802 has been always 
remembered as the most dreary period of my life. Had shoes 
been made then, as now, by steam, and it had been my duty to 
superintend the operation of machinery, perhaps I might have 
been better satisfied ; but constant labor, in a lonely place, without 
book or newspaper, and with but one month schooling that winter, 
I was completely miserable. A few more months devoted in 
different times and ways to this uncongenial employment, drove 
me to' the doubtful experiment of attempting to acquire a profes- 
sion, though surrounded with difficulties and discouragements. 

If in leaving the farm and the workshop, my object was to 
escape from labor, as was often said of students in those days, I 
have in a great degree missed my object, for with family cares, a 



REMINISCENCES. T 

small farm and a garden, and a supply of mechanical tools. I believe 
I may claim that I have performed more manual labor than any 
other man in the county, who has performed the same amount of 
literary and professional services, and it is not unlikely that it is to 
that useful exercise, which no gymnasium could supply, that I am 
able to address you at this late period in life. 

In October, 1809, at twenty-one years of age, after laboring 
through the summer for wages with a relative, besides assisting 
my father on his farm, I commenced studying with Mr. Braman , 
as a private student. Boarding still at my father's, and rooming 
at Mr. Braman's with Nathaniel Merrill, A. M., then a student of 
divinity, afterwards twenty years minister of Lyndboro, N. H. , 
whose kind assistance it is but justice to acknowledge, determined 
me to devote most of my time to study, until I could prepare my- 
self for a profession or some literary employment, where my taste 
and my business might in some degree coincide. 

I had been here in study but a few weeks when I was most 
unexpectedly applied to, to teach the town school in my own 
neighborhood. This was a branch school, a part of the largo 
district then comprising nearly all of what is now the town of 
Georgetown, which labor, fortified with a certificate from Mr. 
Braman and Mr. Merrill, I had the temerity to undertake, though 
some of the scholars were nearly of my own age, and with nearly 
all of them I had been associated as a scholar the previous term. 
How well I succeeded in this employment, may perhaps be judged 
by the fact that I was employed to teach the same school the next 
winter, which passed with much satisfaction. The two following 
winters I was employed by the town authorities to teach the centre 
school, in the "old red school house/' near the present town- 
house, where I had an average of sixty scholars, with a large part 
of whom I had been recently associated as a scholar, under the 
teachers before named. Here I had a school which, could I have 
dismissed off a dozen infant minds, would have done honor to 
any academy. With them I spent two long and happy terms. 
Most of them have acted well their part since, served in professions 
and mercantile business ; and the young ladies fully sustained their 
part, and have been subsequently honored with literary employ- 
ments and respectable connections. 

Though hard the service, these engagements were of great value 



8 REMINISCENCES. 

to me. I was in a literary employment which could be dispatched 
by six hours labor each day, and in which my own improvement 
ought to be equal to that of my pupils. I felt that I was at full 
liberty to devote the remaining hours to study. This was a great 
advance upon previous literary piivileges. A great point was 
gained. I had sustained myself for some terms as a teacher, and 
felt that I had the confidence and good will of my scholars. My 
school government was almost entirely by moral suasion, and I was 
satisfied that I could not keep a useful school on any other system. 
By treating all my larger scholars as young gentlemen and ladies, 
they were induced to respect themselves and me. I found a great 
advantage in meeting my larger scholars once or twice a week in 
a gratuitous evening school, by which I secured their intimate 
acquaintance and good will. My wishes were their law, without 
need of compulsion, and where the larger scholars set a geod 
example, authority is easily maintained over the small ones. In 
recollecting my teachers and my own experience, I often feel indig- 
nant at the now frequent attempts to enhance the merits of mod- 
ern schools by misrepresenting and disparaging the schools of 
former days, as little better than houses of correction, to which 
childrea were sent to be restrained by the terror of the rod ; and 
the school houses as little better than hovels, pervious to wind and 
rain. I am quite sure that no one of the 150 scholars who were 
under my care in Georgetown, ever gave any such account of our 
schools or accommodations. I can bear a cheerful testimony to 
the kind and parental treatment I received from my early instruc- 
tors, and to the kindly interest of several of them I consider my- 
self indebted for whatever of good has proceeded from ray long 
course of labors. A short term of school teaching in Jaffrey, N. 
H , in the spring of 1811, and another in Winchendon, Mass., in 
the spring of 1813, complete the list of my engagements as a 
school teacher. My schools in these places were respectable and 
successful, but the minds and tastes of parents or pupils were not 
so congenial with my own as those in my native place, where after 
teaching four long terms in successive years, no whisper of com- 
plaint ever reached my ears from parent or scholar ! 

It will be perceived that most of this time, devoted to teaching, 
was within the three years alloted for medical studies, which must 
have rendered my studies severe, or my preparation for a medical 




REMINISCENCES. 9 

examination superficial. I felt both of these to be true. My 
labors and cares were depressing. During five years devoted to 
education after reaching my majority, I earned by labor and teach- 
ing nearly five hundred dollars, and the highest wages in my larg- 
est schools was but $22 a month, boarding myself. Each month 
in those days was made up of four weeks of five and one-half 
days. We had no Wednesday afternoons or whole Saturdays of 
leisure, as at the present time. Yet they were among my happiest 
days. "Hope," which "springs eternal in the human breast," 
lightened my cares, and allured me onward with visions of better 
days. I should have joyfully made teaching my profession with 
half the encouragement that business receives at the present til 
but wages were low, and schools taught by male teachers, were. 
not kept in but few towns in the State, except in the wic 

!Nor had we any other employment open to those 
strength or literary taste, led them to seek relief from th 
toil of the farm. No railroad trains thundered over our 
and afforded employment for young and aetive men, for long ye 
after those times, factories were few and far between, and few 
country towns had even a store in which to employ a cl 
labor for life, or one of the three professions, were nearly all the 
choice presented to the youth of the country. 

One bright summer morning, by the light of a moon jnst past 
the full, I rode on horseback to "old Rowley," with a view of 
entering as a student with Dr. Proctor of that town. Arriving 
too early for a morning call, I tied my horse to the fence, and 
took a dewy walk to the top of "Prospect Hill," and there 
waited for the sun to rise from his ocean bed. The three willows 
which then guarded the summit, have often, in later years, when 
seen from a distance, reminded me of that early ride ; and I 
believe they still stand sentinel there. I called on the doctor, was 
well received, but his terms of board and tuition exceeding my 
probable means, so the negotiation was not renewed. 

I also called on Dr. Elias Weld, then a highly respectable physi- 
cian at East Haverhill. He would willingly have acceded to my 
wishes . but that he had purchased a farm at Hallowell, Maine, and 
contemplated a removal to that place, a design which he did not 
carry out for many years, nor until some years after being instru- 
mental in my removal and settlement, as his neighbor, in this place. 
2 



10 REMINISCENCES. 

In September, 1810, through the agency of Luke A. Spofford, 
then a student with Bev. Seth Payson, of Kindge, and afterward 
my brother-in-law, and many years in the ministry, my name was 
entered as a medical student with Dr. Israel Whiton and Dr. 
William Parkhurst, then in the practice of medicine at Winchen- 
doa, Worcester county, Mass., to which place I soon after pro- 
ceeded, and commenced medical studies. 

Here occurred one of the most trying passages of my life. 
Hitherto my studies had not pointed to any definite result, and 
hopes were still entertained by the family that I should finally 
settle on the old homestead, a course to which I was much inclined 
had circumstances favored. But assuming the stand of a medica* 
student, that expectation could no longer be indulged. I must go 
forward, or fail of accomplishing what I had publicly attempted — 
a mortifying failure, not to be thought of for a moment. 

Dr. Whiton was a well educated physician, about sixty years of 
age, a gentleman of good acquirements, literary taste, and in large 
practice. Dr. Parkhurst was about thirty years old, recently from 
the medical schools in Boston and Hanover. He was to be my 
teacher in anatomy and physiology. With these teachers I spent 
nearly three years, though interrupted by my winter schools ; but 
for the time I studied, offering as good advantages for acquiring 
medical knowledge as usually offers in private studies and country 
practice. I formed here an enlarged acquaintance with books and 
literary men, and found the advantage I expected in trying ray 
fortune among entire strangers, upon whom I had no claim for 
partiality or favor. 

Ik had been the earnest wish of my friends, that if I persisted in 
pursuing medical studies, I would still remain at home, and study 
with my kinsman in the neighborhood ; but previous studies hav- 
ing been local or private, I judged it expedient to pursue my pro- 
fessional studies among strangers, which must give me an enlarged 
acquaintance with men and things, and a better preparation for 
practice in some new locality. I may observe that I went to this 
place an entire stranger, without recommendation or assistance 
from any one ; my father never having been called upon for a 
dollar for my education alter I left my almost infant summer 
schools. He was well disposed to assist me, but had no surplus 
money to pay my expenses. It being the wish of all the family 



REMINISCENCES. 11 

that I would settle on the old homestead, I had no cheering words 
to sustain my resolution, and when I left home to commence my 
lonely journey, I left my mother in tears. I am happy to know 
that those tears were not drawn forth by any misconduct on my 
part, and that she lived to meet me in a better home, and share 
whatever success in life I have attained, for more than thirty 
years. 

My father conveyed me in the family carriage to Rodger's tavern 
in Tewksbnry. I then pursued my weary way on foot and alone, 
that day to Groton, and the next to Townsend, near thirty miles, 
where I took the stage. One would have a very indefinite idea ot 
my trials at this period, if he supposed that I left my anxious cares 
behind, and enjoyed the free and buoyant mind of a youth to my 
distant studies. But during my whole term of studies, whether 
in my place of study or in my schools, I had a weight of care 
my aged parents and the family, quite equal to what I have 
ever experienced for my own funnily. 

Some will wonder how I could live and support myself, and study 
two thirds of the time, upon my earnings, scarcely half of what 
is paid for such service at this time. But it may be partially 
explained by stating that my personal expenses were on a scale 
of the closest economy, and I paid but $1.50 a week for board, 
tire-wood and lights, ti.ition being an after consideration. 

In the spring of 1812, my younger teacher having removed to 
New Salem, Franklin county, Massachusetts, I went there by his 
invitation and spent the long cold summer of that year in a diligent 
prosecution of medical studies, and at the same time improving 
my scanty education by a pretty extensive course of miscellaneous 
reading. Here, as at Winchendon, I was thrown into familiar 
intercourse with men in the various professions, clergymen, law- 
yers, physicians and teachers, there being an academy of some 
standing in that town, whose teachers and pupils added much to 
our social improvement. Hon. S. 0. Allen, the attorney, was 
eminent in his profession, and afterwards served the district several 
years in Congress. He had two law-students, D. A. Gregg, of 
Derry, and Luke A. How, of Jaffiey, N. H., who have since been 
somewhat distinguished. Rev. A. Harding was then in the ministry 
there, and was lately living, near ninety years of age. 

During my residence here, the war of IS 12 was declared, and 



12 



REMINISCENCES. 



created immense agitation. This was a party measure, declared 
by a very small majority, and was the sequel of that series of 
commercial restrictions, embargo and non-intercourse acts, which 
was the policy of the Democrats of that day. These restrictions, 
under a pretence of saving our ships and sailors from the beliger- 
ents, formed and imposed by those who had neither ships or sea- 
men, and continued from December, 1807 to this time, had nearly 
swept our ships and commerce from the ocean. This meas- 
ure changed our position, but was scarcely more injurioun to 
the country than the preceding policy, during which it was unlaw- 
ful for any vessel to leave our ports and harbors for eighteen 
months ! I well remember the dismantled ships and roofed decks 
in Salem, but more numerous in Boston, where I was not then 
much acquainted. These measures, carried by southern votes, it 
was well understood were in pursuance of Mr. Jefferson's idea of 
assisting Bonaparte to starve and conquer England. 

Whether the tact that we were almost excluded from the outer 
world, and received but one mail a week from all its cities and 
kingdoms, increased or diminished our anxieties, is uncertain ; at 
any rate, we generally received enough on Fridays to keep up 
animated discussions through the week. 

I left the agreeable society there late in October, never having 
seen the place, and many of my friends there, during the fifty-five 
years that have since passed. I then repaired to Rowley, now 
Georgetown, to fulfill my last engagement there, my fourth in the 
town, and second in the centre school. It was attended by the 
largest and best scholars, and I had a school of which, if I did my 
duty as well as they did theirs, I might well be proud. 

In March, 1813, I returned to Winchendon, but was induced by 
my necessity of earniug money, to engage and teach a school 
there for about two months. With that term, ended my experi- 
ence as a teacher. 

I had two fellow-students during the latter part of my medical 
studies. They wero entered as the pupils of Dr. Whiton, but I was 
to receive my own tuition for attending to their recitations in 
anatomy and physiology. These young men, Abel and 0. W. 
Wilder, commenced their studies by my influence and assistance. 
Both completed their course with honor, and were successful prac- 
titioners in this Slate for many years. 0. W. Wilder, M. D., prac- 



REMINISCENCES. 13 

ticed at Leominster, and acquired a large property. Dr. Abel Wil- 
der practiced in Mendon and other places, had a large and enter- 
prising family, and one of his sons lately held a seat in the Congress 
of the United States. 

When I had passed but two years of interrupted study, I was 
invited by my eldest teacher, then alone, to go into practice with 
him for my own benefit, and many others were urgent for my stay. 
This was probably the best opportunity I ever had to acquire 
business and property, as my senior lived but a few years, and the 
place is now a flourishing manufacturing town. 

But I preferred this region of country. My parents were too 
old to remove to a distance, and were fixed on being with me. As 
I have lived to witness great improvements in this part of the 
State, I have never much regretted my decision. 

In June, 1813, with the advice and recommendation of my in- 
structors, I ventured to present myself for examination for the 
practice of physic and surgery, before the Censors of the Massa* 
chusetts Society at Worcester. 

One of my fellow students conveyed me in a carriage to Prince- 
ton, where I dined, with my companion, with his brother, who had 
married a sister of Dr. Woods, of Andover, and lived with his 
mother, on the old homestead. 

During the afternoon I traveled, with many weary steps, sixteen 
miles to Worcester; came in there at sunset, to see the town 
crowded with attendants on a court in session, and fifteen or twenty 
stage and wagon loads of soldiers, on their way from Charlestown 
to the lakes, to fall or triumph in our victories. 

The next morning I presented myself for examination. I was a 
perfect stranger to the Censors, and had never seen but one of 
them before. I had no favor to ask or expect, nor was the exam- 
ination a slight one in any department. I received my diploma, 
for which I paid ten dollars, a large sum for me, and which is not 
now exacted ; but I deemed it well worth the money, and I had 
the satisfaction of knowing that my teachers received the congratu- 
lations of the censors upon my creditable preparation. 

Tire stage having departed before I was ready, I started about 
5 p. m. for Boston, leaving the city never to see it again till I 
entered it on a steam car, sent by the Legislature on a com- 
mittee to examine tho magnificent State Hospital. I left as I 



14 REMINISCENCES. 

entered, on foot and alone, but my long walk of the day before 
from Princeton, had so stiffened my cords that it was impossible to 
walk. I put up five miles from Worcester, and reached Boston 
the next day by an accidental private conveyance. 

This was my second visit to Boston, which, though then put 
down as containing but 33,250 inhabitants, was then, and had 
been for perhaps a century before, a place of as much public im- 
portance as it is at present, with its 200,000 inhabitants. My 
previous visit was in March, 1803, when by the census of 1800, it 
contained 24,937 people. At that time it had much the appear- 
ance of Salem or Newburyport at the present day, with many 
wooden stores and houses, and open gardens and trees. The mill- 
pond was mostly water, cut off from the Charles river by the old 
dam, and a canal was walled up through the centre, and its banks 
and Haymarket Square covered with wood and lumber from the 
Middlesex canal, of which it was considered a part. And Beacon 
Hill, back of the State House, was many feet higher than the 
foundation of the house, and crowned with a monument. 

The most important improvements had not begun — now June 
1813. Pemberton Square was then a terraced hill, with houses 
and gardens, quite overlooking the town, and central wharf, and 
the market house, and adjoining streets had not reclaimed their 
extended space from the open bay. 

On this, my second visit to Boston, I found it greatly agitated 
by the news, just arrived from Halifax, of the death of Captain 
Lawrence, and the circumstances of the capture of the Chesapeake ; 
which had so mysteriously disappeared irom off that harbor a few 
days before after a single broadside. British ships of war were 
lazily blockading the port. Soldiers were parading the Common, 
which was well filled with piles of cannon balls, stacked arms, and 
munitions of war. After two days in Boston, I took passage for 
Salem, and spent the night at Danvers, and arrived at my father's 
the next day. After remaining at my father's a few weeks, and 
assisting him in his haying, I was induced to visit Hampstead, N. 
H., about nine miles north of Haverhill, Mass., where the kind 
attentions of Rev. John Kelley and J. True, Esq., principally con- 
duced to my stay and settlement in that town, where I was kindly 
received and found a remarkably steady, industrious people, among 
whom I spent three and a half years with pleasure and advantage. 



REMINISCENCES. 15 

As I was not burdened with practice, in October I visited Dartmouth 
College and attended the medical lectures. President Wheelock, 
son of the founder, was spending his last years in office. The 
unfortunate quarrel which removed him soon after, was already in 
progress, and my wonder was that he had remained there so long. 
Dr. Perkins lectured on anatomy and physiology, Dr. Noyes, of 
Newburyport, on theory and practice of physic, and Dr. Graves 
on chemistry. I received a certificate for practice in that State 
from Dr. Nathan Smith, the founder of the medical school there, 
and President of the New Hampshire Medical Society, then about 
to remove to New Haven. 

Upon this journey I visited Jaffrey, N. H. , where I was married 
October 25, 1813, consummating a union which had been five years 
in contemplation, and which has had an important bearing on all 
the subsequent transactions of my life. A course of action which 
many would pronounce imprudent, but which I recommend to 
every industrious and prudent young man, prepared to go into 
business, and especially to every young physician. The succeeding 
January we commenced that course of housekeeping which, with 
that special blessing of God, which always rests upon a wise use of 
his own institutions, still continues. 

Hampstead, like all other towns at that time, which had a good 
portion of active intelligent men, was greatly agitated with politics. 
It was difficult to acquire even the personal friendship of a political 
opponent. I had opinions, and scorned to conceal them. The 
town was about equally divided, and my predelictions were no 
sooner known than half of the people were my firm friends and 
patrons, but as there was a Democratic doctor in town, it will !*e* 
perceived that it was a difficult task to gain the other half. Think- 
ing outspoken honesty the best policy, but carefully avoiding all 
political discussion while attending the sick, I openly advocated my 
own views in social conversations and on public occasions; but 
during the sickly season of 1815, politics were forgotten, and I had 
the patronage of many of the strongest Democratic families in the 
place. 

With this circle of intelligent and active friends I remained three 
and a half years, and just about paid my expenses. In connection 
with my father, I built a good house and barn, which I finished and 
occupied from November 1815 to 1817, in full expectation of a more 



16 SfcMXNlSCENCES. 

peril] anent residence. These buildings the present owner has finish- 
ed and improved so as to do no discredit to my plans or his own ; 
and I did what few do with buildings they put up, sold them for the 
cost, when I removed to this town. 

For the people of Hampsiead I have ever entertained the highest 
regard ; they received us with great kindness, myself and wife were 
made happy in our residence among them, and we left them with 
much regret. Mr. Kelley was my firm friend and warm adviser 
and patron, and his friendship did not cease when I removed, 
his frequent visits were welcomed at my home, till he went to his 
reward in extreme old age. 

In December, 1816, Dr. Elias Weill, then a well known physician 
of East Haverhill, was called in as counsel with me, in a severe 
case of typhus fever. I had, as before stated, enjoyed some previous 
acquaintance with him, when I wished to enter with him as a pupil 
in 1810, and he informed me that Doctor Eben Jewett, then physi- 
cian here, was in the last stages of consumption, and advised me to 
step into the vacancy, soon to be made. I well recollected my for- 
mer ideas of its pleasant location for country practice, the beautiful 
river and near vicinity of Haverhill were attractions. I decidedly 
preferred a location in Massachusetts, to equal advantages in New 
Hampshire. But to leave my excellent friends, my newly acquired 
homestead, and throw myself, with the encumbrance of two fam- 
ilies, upon the uncertain ties of a new location, and trust to acquir- 
ing new friends, — -these considerations bore heavily upon my mind, 
and cost many hours of the deepest consideration. 

In March, 1817 I visited this place, and called on several people, 
among them Rev. Mr. Perry, Thomas Savory, Moses Parker, and 
William Greenough, Esqs., who gave me all expected encouragement 
and upon the demise of Dr. Jewett, a few days after, I removed to 
this place, boarding with Esquire Savory till the removal of my 
family in April. 

My fifty years settlement here dates from March 27th, 1817. My 
first charge for a medical visit was March 29th, to Barker Lapham, 
a charge the same evening to William Griffith, charges on 30th, to 
Elijah Clarke, and Daniel Parker, and on the 31st, to the town of 
Bradford, John Edney and Peter Parker, with other visits to the 
same person s to the number of twenty, completed my first week of 
professional labor here. 



REMINISCENCES. 1 7 

I had no competitor in town, and mv charges comprise the names 
of a large part of the families in this parish, and many in what is 
still Bradford, hint charges were low, and with some competition 
from abroad, it required the closest economy then, and has ever 
since to live, and bring up a large family. The common charge 
being but 33 cents a visit for the first ten years. The census of 
Bradford was 1,369 in 1819 of which this parish had half, which in 
Mr. Perry's opinion did not increase the first half of the decade. 

Dr. Benjamin Parker was then residing in town, and though not 
desirous of general practice, yet sometimes took charge of patients, 
He was a native of the town, but had resided twenty years in 
Virginia. He was a man of talent and a graduate of Harvard ; 
His southern manners were unpopular. He was a severe critic on 
whatever passed under his observation, and he candidly informed 
me that his patronage, it extended, would be rather an injury. 
But in all this I was happily disappointed. Mutual respect and 
good will grew up between us, his criticisms were kindly given, 
and fearlessly parried or thankfully received. We lived in har- 
mony as neighbors, as physicians, and as friends, for more than 
twenty-seven years. I was his family physician ; as confidential 
friend, I wrote his last will and testament, and attended his last 
sickness. He passed off in a good old age, but even then his de- 
parture was to me a severe loss. 

My other neighbors were Dr. Weld, before named, Moses D. 
Spofford, of Georgetown, Daniel Brickett and Pviifus Longley, of 
Haverhill, Dean Kobinson, of West Xewbury, Thomas Kittredge, 
and son Joseph, and Osgood, of Andover, Merriam, of Topsfield, 
Manning, of Ipswich, and Spoffjrd, of Newburyport — with all of 
whom I maintained pleasant social and professional relations. 

The bouse where I now live, and where I shall probably spend 
the short remainder of my life, was built, as most of you know, by- 
Rev. Ebenezer Dutch, then minister of the Second Congregational 
Church in Bradford, now First Church in this town. Soon after 
his ordination, and as near as I have been able to ascertain by 
diligent search, in 1780. Being perhaps too ready for change and 
speculation, he sold the house some years after to Captain Ephraim 
Emery, and purchased the house and farm of Deacon Jackman, 
being that now owned by the widow and family of Charles Harri-' 
man, and removed thither. Captain Emery dug the well and 
3 



REMINISCENCES. 

built the office I now occupy, as a back room over the well, which 
I removed and appropriated 'as at present. The people being dis- 
satisfied with the location of their pastor, he re-purchased the house, 
and spent the remainder of his days in it, where he died, August 
4, 1813. After his decease it was purchased by Andrew Haiidan, 
shipmaster, of Salem, who resided here during the war of 1812, 
and sold it in the spring of 1817 to William Greenough, Esq., of 
whom I purchased it by deed of June IT, 1817, for the sum of 
$1,125, with many misgivings whether I should be able to make 
and retain the purchase. I occupied it immediately, and by the 
good providence of God it has proved a pleasant and comfortable 
home for my parents to the close of their lives, and for myself and 
family for half a century, its value in the meantime having much 
increased. 

There was at that time in what is now this town, 122 dwelling- 
houses. The Congregational church, a very creditable structure, 
in the fashion of the day, with galleries on three sides, porches 
and entrance at each end, and front door under the center of the 
long or front gallery, and pulpit opposite. These, with two rows 
of windows, an arched pulpit window, and sounding board sus- 
pended over the pulpit, gave it a much more imposing appearance 
than at present— a fashion and style which, with the exception of 
square pews, I should have been willing to have retained to the 
present day. We had four school-houses, worth perhaps twice as 
many hundred dollars. There was some scintillations of a Free-* 
will Baptist society up between the Parishes, which having no local 
habitation, soon ceased to have a name, and expired without leav- 
ing a trace that it had ever existed. 

We had no hall or public building of any kind, but the church 
and school-houses. The former was used for town meetings, cele- 
brations and all public occasions, and the school houses for confer- 
ences and caucuses. The church contained no fixtures for lighting, 
till after 1817, and no apparatus for warming till after 1821, and 
it may serve to mark the change in fashions and habits to remark 
here that I had never seen, previous to those dates, either light or 
fire in any church, save once at Hampstead, to close a town meet- 
ing, though I was then near thirty years of age, and had resided 
in different towns and States. 
There has been built since 152 dwellings, on new sites, several 



REMINISCENCES. 1 9 

others have been wholly rebuilt, and seven houses, occupied when 
I came have gone down, leaving their sites vacant. 

The roads at that time were narrow and inconvenient, and often 
filled with snow, and it was common after heavy falls of snow to 
strike out new paths through fields and pastures. Such was the 
state of the roads the spring I came here— mary of them filled 
with snow up to the first of April. In one of the early years of 
my residence here, I drove my horse and sleigh on the snow crust 
over the tops of the walls, from Capt. John — now Moses Stickney 
— to Mr. Phinehas— now Rufus P. Hardy's. Nearly every road 
then in town has since been widened, and many new ones made. 

Nearly the whole of this village was confined to the river road, 
and no settlement in any other part of the town could aspire to 
the name of a village. It was then difficult to obtain a houselot 
on the side or corner of the old farms, and I do not recollect but 
o* e instance where such an encroachment was effected, previous 
to the purchase by Mr. Perry of the twenty-acre lot opposite the 
church, of Mr. William Parker, on which not more than one or 
two houses were built previous to 1S35. 

In 1820 the plan of erecting a building and establishing an acad- 
emy school here, was devised by Mr. Perry and myself. Though 
the first definite plan for building was mine, Mr. Perry's influence 
and reputation is entitled to a full share in its establishment and 
success. I drew up the subscription paper, and obtained the sub- 
scribers for 132 shares, liable to an assessment of ten dollars each, 
on which one thousand dollars were raised, and applied to the 
purchase of the land, and erecting the present buildings. Labor 
was low, lumber was cheap, and the services of the building com- 
mittee entirely gratuitous. The Board of Trustees, elected by the 
subscribers, were Rev. G. B. Perry, Dr. Benjamin Parker, Moses 
Parker, Esq., Capt George Savary, Eben Rollins, Phinehas Parker, 
Jeremiah Spoffbrd, Samuel Tenney, William Greenough. Mr. 
Perry was elected President, J. Spoffbrd Secretary, and Dea. Dan- 
iel Stickney, Treasurer. This Board managed the receipts and 
expenditures during the building and early operation. Great har- 
mony prevailed in the Board. 

To mark the change of the times, I may state that for the frame 
we gave seven dollars a thousand, and for the boards six dollars, 
to Elijah Stearns, of Goffstown, N. H., and for the shingles §22.75, 



20 REMINISCENCES. 

or $2.87 per thousand. The shingles are still in use, after forty- 
six years. An act of incorporation, in accordance with a petition 
of the proprietors, was passed^ February 7th, 1822. 

Without any funds, an active and useful academy school was 
kept up, dependant upon the tuition and some contributions from 
the trustees, for more than twenty-five years, and in the opinion 
of most judicious people, the cause, not only of education but of 
manners and morals, has suffered greatly by its discontinuance. 
If for want of zealous patrons, and under the present adverse 
State legislation, a continuous academy school can no more be 
maintained, I have indulged the hope that one or two terms of a 
select school each summer, or a good library and an annual course 
of lectures, might be established and maintained, to preserve the 
literary character of the institution, and diffuse blessings over the 
town. 

Of the original trustees, named in the act of incorporation, I 
alone remain, since the death of Mr. Perry, Dec. 13, 1859. I 
should be happy to know that the present members of the Board, 
and their future associates, will effect still greater success in the 
cause of education. 

In accomplishing what we did, it is but justice to say that we 
were much indebted to the long and taithful services of Mr. Syl- 
vanus Morse, who, during fifteen vears, sustained the school upon 
its own resources, with honor, and much advantage to a whole 
generation of our youth. 

Having a large family, 1 have also felt a deep interest in the 
common schools of the State and town. I have given my gratuit- 
ous services near twenty times, on town and district school com- 
mittees, and do not concede that the gratuitous service, so willingly 
performed in those days by the clergy and others, was less faith- 
fully performed than the paid service of present Committees. Nor 
do I believe that the scholars of our town schools and our academy- 
were not as well prepared, mentally and morally, for their appro- 
priate duties, as those educated under the expensive machinery 
and high pretensions of the present day. 

In nearly all the improvements which have been effected here, 

I have taken an active part, and have often incurred the censure 

of interested parties, and have doubtless lost some business by 

\pffending individuals, but I have always been governed by my own 



REMINISCENCES. 21 

sense of duty and right, with perhaps too little regard to my own 
private interest. Whatever has been thought of those projects in 
which I have been forward, at the period of their inception, time 
and experience has proved their utility, and without the new streets 
and lots which have been laid out by private enterprise, the pres- 
ent growth of the town in business and population could not have 
taken place. 

In the spring of 1S26, I was connected with Capt. Day Mitchell, 
Sylvanus Hardy, Peter Parker, Dr. Benjamin Parker, and Capt. 
Benjamin Parker, in establishing the chain ferry across Merrimack 
river at this place, where Milliken's ferry, Russell's ferry, and 
Stephen's ferry were formerly kept for a century, but discontinued 
about 1797, after the erection of the Haverhill and Rocks bridges. 
I had previously devised a plan for a chain ferry on a different 
scheme, but did not find associates or encouragement. After the 
rise of Lowell, in 1822, a chain ferry was started there, where 
Central Bridge now is, in imitation of which ours was put in oper- 
ation in 1826, and has been continued successfully to the present 
day. In opening the new route from the ferry to Haverhill I took 
an active part, having headed the two successful petitions upon 
which the two parts of the road were laid out. 

In the spring of 1832 I devised a plan of laying out new streets 
and lots, for the enlargement of the village opposite the ferry. All 
the houses composing this central village, previous to that time, 
beiug on one street, leading from the Congregational Church to 
the ferry, and along the river. I made a survey and plan of the 
farm of Mr. William Parker, which was for sale, and laid out the 
streets and squares, as they now appear. 

The farm of twelve acres was purchased by Dr. Benjamin 
Parker, Jeremiah Spofford, Nathaniel Ladd. and William S. Balch, 
for 82500, the lots staked out and laid open for sale The streets 
and squares were given for public use, and there were' 27 lots, on 
which have been built at the time of this writing, sixteen dwelling 
houses, two churches, a chapel, a large school house, and several 
6hops and factories, and the original house has been finished over 
into a shoe factory, and much enlarged. The sale was slow, and 
the enterprise unprofitable to the proprietors, rendered more so to 
some of us, by a rescrt to law by one of the partners to support a 
baseless claim, and an unrighteous award of referees, with the 



22 REMINISCENCES. 

details of which I will not mar these pages. Bnt I take pleasure 
in this opportunity to do justice to Dr. Parker and his heirs. The 
Doctor was a faithful partner during his life, assisting the concern 
by his money and credit, and his heirs kindly relinquished a just 
claim, which might have been enforced without cause of complaint. 

It cost much time, travel and care to manage this concern for 
twenty years, in all which I bore more than an equal share, with- 
out allowance or remuneration, and paid an equal part of all assess- 
ments that were ever made. 

In April, 1850, N. H. Griffith, George Atwood, Elijah Clark, Jere- 
miah Spofford, E. P. Runlet, George Carleton, and Moses Foster, 
purchased of Aaron Atwood, about four acres of land, on the rising 
ground opposite my house, for $800, -of which we took a deed April 
29th of that year. We laid out streets, and sixteen house lots, 
which we sold at public auction on the third of May following for 
$1085, by an exchange of land with out partner, E. Clark, we 
opened the road down the hill to the Methodist Church, and by 
the laying out of the county road, soon after, from the Spring to 
Foster's Corner, the lots were brought into a much improved con- 
nection, and are some of the most eligible and pleasant situations 
in the town. They have upon them at present eight dwelling 
houses, and other buildings. 

In the laying out and sale of lots, on the west side of the old 
Jaques' road, I had no concern, and no occasion to speak, except to 
say that this improvement probably grew out of the preceding 
opening and sale of lots, in 1832 and 1850. I may here add that 
in behalf of several young men I offered $1000, and $1200, for 
the land in preceding years, which were refused by the owner, Mr. 
Phinehas Parker, but when the laying out of lots and sale was 
made after his decease, it brought much less money, as less interest 
was felt, than would have been excited by the purchase, division 
and sale by a company of young men, intending to occupy and 
improve the premises. 

We had several books of statistics, but to my knowledge, no 
Gazetteer of Massachusetts existed, previous to 1828. Several 
proposals had been issued, and I compiled the history and statistics 
of Bradford, at the request of those who proposed such a publica- 
tion. But as none were then in progress, and I had collected 
many statistics, I made use of all my leisure for many months, and 
during this year, in connection with Charles Whipple,' bookseller, 



REMINISCENCES. 23 

of Newbury port, one thousand copies were published, and disposed 
of long before the publication of a second edition in 1860. 

But little idea can be formed by those unacquainted with such 
labors, of the amount of labor and care necessary for the compila- 
tion of even this small volume of sketches of the history, situ .tion 
and statistics of three hundred and thirty-two towns, and a general 
view of the State and its counties, rivers and improvements. A 
determination not to fail in what was once publicly undertaken 
carried me through the labor, which, though never properly repaid, 
is not considered as lost, since it has had the approbation of those 
most capable of judging of its -value. 

But it is chiefly, and more especially in the character ol a physi- 
cian, that I have acted ray part for half a century in this place. 
Not as an experiment of how much money I could make by follow- 
ing some fashionable ism or imposing upon the credulous, but as a 
physician of the old school, expecting to be judged by the general 
result, willing to gather knowledge of the healing art from every 
possible source, claiming that whatever will cure the sick, whether 
it comes from the vegetable or mineral kingdom, whether it is 
first discovered and brought into notice in ancient or modern time-, 
by regular or quack, by homopath, alopath or hydropath, male or 
female, belongs to our system, if it will only cure, or alleviate, the 
ills and pains that flesh is heir to. On this system we stand, on a 
basis firm as the hills ; it can never go down, or out of fashion, as 
long as people live, and have pains which they wish to have allevi- 
ated, though it may vary at different times and places, according 
to the wisdom and discretion of those who exercise it, and the 
sound judgment of the communities, among whom it is practiced. 

A false and foolish notion exists, and is zealously propagated in 
the community by ignorant and interested persons, that we of the 
old school have certain medicines in use, and a certain routine to 
pursue, in all cases of certain names, whether our patient improves 
or recedes, lives or dies, and that if this tread-mill practice can be 
exploded by some new and popular theory, we shall be down, as 
he is down who pretends to cure all diseases by lobelia, or arnica, 
or some secret compound, when their humbug is exploded. But 
we are bound to no such procrustean bedstead, and sit on no such 
one-legged stool. The whole kingdom of nature, and the whole 
circle of science is ours, and from whatever source knowledge of 
the healing art can be derived, we are ready to appropriate it to 



24 REMINISCENCES. 

our purpose, and give the benefit of it not only to our patient s* 
but to all who are willing to profit by our knowledge or experience, 
despising the narrow and selfish policy which conceals discoveries 
and improvements, or what pretend to be such, for purpose of pri- 
vate gain. 

The permanency of our system is well illustrated by that which 
you all know to be a fact, that the regular practice, though always 
under the hoi fire of persecution, and assailed by every ignorant 
pretender and every form of quackery, in ten thousand adver- 
tisements, in ten million daily papers, almanacs, and handbills, we 
remain from year to year, and from age to age, very much the 
same. Like the burning bush, though always in the fire, we are 
never consumed ; and what is more strange is that this endurance 
is with but very little resistance or defence on our part, but on the 
other hand, an almost criminal neglect of the proper means for 
exposing humbuggery, and doing ourselves and the profession jus- 
tice. "While the most ignorant pretender proclaims his unfailing 
cures, and assures the public of invaluable remedies, the falsehood 
of which is not known till after it is purchased and paid for, our 
professors and medical men, by their very truth and candor, in 
publishing failures, and acknowledging the " uncertainty of the 
healing art," often furnish their opponents with their most potent 
weapons. 

One circumstance greatly conducive to the comfort and useful- 
ness of the profession, is the harmony and good will which at the 
present day, prevails among all regular practitioners.- A feud or 
quarrel among regular physicians, in this region, has been almost 
or quite unknowm, throughout my whole term of practice. My 
well known wish never to be called into any family unless I had 
their confidence to that degree that the case could be entrusted to 
me w r ith such counsel as might be mutually satisfactory, has se- 
cured me from all collisions about practice in sick chambers, or 
among interested friends. Several worthy young men who have 
seen fit to sit down within the circle which I have principally occu- 
pied for fifty years, have been cordially received as having equal 
rights with myself. 

The harmony and good will which has in past time existed 
throughout the State between the members of the different pro- 
fessions has also been highly honorable, and mutually beneficial. 



REMINISCENCES. 25 

If men of intellect and culture, do not confide in each other, the 
people of less culture will not long confide in them. Through 
most of my professional life I have enjoyed the full benefit of har- 
monious action, and confidential intercourse, with men of the 
three Professions, and especially is it desirable that the Clerical 
and Medical professions should ever harmonize, as it is generally 
their destiny to move in the same circle, and come in contact with 
the same class of minds. 

I should regret to believe that times and circumstances were 
tending to produce some alienation between those whose comfort 
and prosperity are so intimately connected. 

It is a common complaint among physicians at the present day, 
that they find the example and influence of the clergy in many 
instances adverse to the regular practice. The physicians of a 
neighboring city say, that after doing many hundreds of dollars of 
gratuitous service for them and their families, with little or no 
charge, they lend their names and influence to quackery. It is not 
long since, that a homoeopath who has since abandoned the humbug 
and gone into a factory, was boasting of his patronage among the 
Andover professors. A congregational clergyman of a neighboring 
town spent much time and travel to introduce a homoeopathic doc- 
tor among the patients of the resident physician. We do not 
know how to account for their easy delusion, but by adopting the 
opinion of one of their number, a man of the highest standing, Dr. 
Nott, of Union College. He says, " Ministers, as a class, know 
less practically of human nature than any other class of men." 
This is unfortunate, but probably true. They associate more exclu- 
sively with each other than others, an ■'. : what they com 
truth to men in masses, with little occasion to meet an antagonist 
in earnest debate, and most of them avoid such collision. I lately 
met a clerical homceopathist, who, in the language of theology had 
arrived at full assurance. 1 argued the absurdity of believing that 
a sugar pill as large as a pin head, or the ten thousandth part of a 
drop of laudanum or acconite could perform the miracles he imputed 
to them, but he discarded all argument, believed intuitively, and 
hugged his delusion. 

No improvement or discovery in medicine which has stood the 
test of time and wise experiment, but has either originated within 
the regular profession, or been willingly and joyfully adopted by 
4 



26 REMINISCENCES. 

them, and its benefits distributed over the community ; as for in- 
stance inoculation for the small pox, vaccination, and anesthesia, 
or the use of newly discovered agents by which the patient is re- 
lieved of pain in extreme disease or under the surgeon's knife. If 
it were true that we were bound by tradition or compact to some 
old and beaten track, all these improvements would be lost to our 
patients, and the subjects of operative surgery would be still 
shrieking under the surgeon's knife, instead of the comfortable 
oblivion he now enjoys, by a modern discovery in medical science, 
while undergoing amputation or extirpation. 

The department of surgery seems nearly abandoned to the regu- 
lar practitioner, evidently because its domain is less adapted to pur- 
poses of imposture and deception than medicine. It is much easier 
to convince the ignorant and credulous that their livers have 
been half consumed and restored by a decoction of liverwort, than 
it is to convince the same, or some other person, that his limbs 
have been broken, cut and mangled, and made whole by a syrup of 
cure-all or boneset. The eye of every spectator can see whether 
a broken, misplaced and grating bone is made straight and useful 
by skillful manipulation, a bleeding artery secured, or a fearful 
gash replaced and skillfully sustained by appropriate bandages ; but 
no one is permitted to open a living body, to see whether the prom- 
ised miracle of healing is in reality what it pretends to be — they 
will not tell what is in your pocket, because its truth can be tested, 
but tell all about your liver, for it is safe from scrutiny. 

In my fifty years' practice of medicine, though in general follow- 
ing what is considered the regular course, I have been ready to 
follow every improvement, and have in some respects varied my 
practice, and used new medicines when accident, or counsel, or 
experiment, brought them into favorable notice. I have adhered 
to the ancient course, not because it is old, or because I am bound 
by any compact or superstition to practice on any particular rou- 
tine, but because there was none better, and because the liberal 
principle of our profession allows each member to cure the sick by 
any possible means in his power. It is our principle to lay the 
whole kingdom of nature, and the whole circle of science under 
contribution, and cure the sick by large doses, or small doses, from 
the animal, vegetable or mineral kingdom, as they seem adapted 
to our wants, and instead of setting up some great pretension to 



BEMIKISCENCES. 27 

6ecret skill, with which to humbug the public and make money, 
we bind ourselves to communicate and publish all useful knowledge 
derived from success, or practice, or fortunate discovery, to the 
whole profession, that they and the world may be benefited, instead 
of each individual trying to make money by secret skill, real or 
pretended. We use without scruple the lobelia of the Thompson- 
ian, the arnica of the homoeopath, and the cold water of the hydro- 
path, and if any one can believe that the powerful and dangerous 
doses of the "Indian tobacco," which have so often covered the 
patient with the cold sweat of approaching death, and not unfre- 
quently its reality, or the infinitesimal nothings of the homoeo- 
path, are better than a reasonable use of the same articles and 
others by old-school physicians, they must be miracles of igno- 
raRce and credulity. 

Fifty years* practice upon the same spot gives small opportunity 
to evade the test of time, and mature observation in the mind of 
every honest observer, upon the value of any one's practice of the 
system he pursues. My practice has been applied upon two, three, 
four, and in several instances upon five generations in direct line, 
in the same family, and upon the same persons in all their occasion 
to employ a physician, for fifty years. I have within the last year 
had no less than four persons under my care who were my patients 
first in 1817, fifty years ago. If uur medicines are the slow poisons 
which interested quackery often represents them to be, they are 
certainly very slow. One lady informed me within a few days, that 
after having attended her grandmother before she was born, I had 
attended in all cases in her father's family of five children. In her 
own family of husband and four children, the youngest of which is 
nearly full grown, all of whom are still living, after many cases of 
severe and dangerous sickness, except the grandmother, who died 
of old age in another town. She therefore thought her confidence 
well founded. 

But I have often found the credit I have obtained has borne but 
small proportion to the success of my practice. I have retained 
the unshaken confidence of many families on whom I had in some 
instances applied my skill without success in restoring health or 
saving life, and I have seen families in which I had never lost a 
patient, turn away to the most arrant quackery, and continue their 
misplaced confidence in some new humbug, under the use of which 



28 



REMINISCENCES. 



several members of the family had gone down to the grave in 
quick succession. 

In the exercise of my profession here, I have been called to pa- 
tients in every house that was standing in this town when I came 
here except one, and in 132 of the 153 which have been since 
erected. I have made from twelve to fifteen hundred visits a year, 
during more than forty of the years, as I have the books now to 
show. These books have all been preserved, and contain an accu- 
rate duplicate entry, on day-book and ledger, of every visit intend- 
ed to be charged as such, for more than half a century, and it is 
confidently believed that a full examination of all my books and 
accounts, would convince any competent and honest accountant, 
that certain parties and referees, who a few years ago undertook 
to impeach my accuracy and honesty, by making up a fictitious 
account against me, every item of which they constantly concealed, 
that in making and adhering to their extraordinary and unfounded 
award, they were much more troubled by the fullness and accuracy 
of my accounts, even in a case where three others were doing the 
business as well as myself, than they were by my inaccuracy or 
deficiency. 

Surgery has never been with me a favorite branch of the profes- 
sion, yet it has been my lot to take the responsibility of severe 
cases in almost every form. I have had four broken bones under 
my care at one time, and probably a hundred in all. I have had 
torn scalps, ghastly gashes, severed arteries and fearful dislocations. 
One arm roughly torn off by factory machinery, hands nearly sev- 
ered by fire-arms, by the hay-cutter and the axe, feet split by the 
latter instrument. But I need not shrink from a comparison with 
the patients of hospitals and celebrated surgeons for perfect cures. 
In this respect I have not the benefit of the advertising quack, 
whose great cures are generally at a convenient distance from the 
credulous reader. Mine have been in your own houses, and my 
patients are about your streets. Nor have I ever lost a patient by 
a fractured limb, a thing not uncommon in cities and hospital 
practice. 

To the surviving mothers of the last and present generation I 
may safely appeal to support the justice of my claim that I have 
possessed their confidence in a degree that has induced them to 
rely implicitly upon my care and skill for themselves and their 






REMINISCENCES. 29 

offspring in their utmost need, as is proved satisfactorily by the 
fact that for thirty two years of my fullest practice, though emi- 
nent physicians were at hand, no counsel has been called in any 
obstetric case, to relieve the patient or divide responsibility ; and to 
that generous confidence which awaits results under the care of a 
chosen physician with calm patience, instead of the anxiety, doubt 
and alarm which attends the introduction of counsel, I have no 
doubt some are indebted for safe recovery. And in attendance 
upon a thousand cases but five patients have died during confine- 
ment, and two or three of these from diseases not peculiar to the 
puerperal state, but which might have happened to other patients, 
male or female. 

One claim I am bound in duty and truth to make, in behalf of 
myself and my brothers of the regular practice. That of contrib- 
uting a larger portion of our earnings and labors to the relief of 
the poor, the sick and the afflicted, than any other class of men in 
the community. While the successful merchant, and the rich capi- 
talist, give large sums for charity and education, it is often giving 
but a part of the surplus of their wealth which they cannot use, 
often the product ot a day by a lucky rise in stocks, or of a pros- 
perous voyage. They justly receive the gratitude of the recipients 
and the plaudits of the community, though it is all done by a stroke 
of the pen, and sent to its destination without hardship or priva- 
tion. Not so the physician ; he deals out perhaps an equal sum in 
the medicine he has purchased and his own hard labor, carried to 
its destined object through the heats of summer and the snows of 
winter. Often have I shivered at the sound of the distant carriage, 
and listened to the tread of the messenger as he approached my 
door, to call me from my warm bed to face the bitter cold, and 
tread the pathless snow, to visit the sick and the dying, and spend 
anxious and we?.ry hours of care and responsibility at the bedside, 
sometimes with prospects of remuneration that are never realized, 
but often to the destitute invalid or lone widow, when we are well 
aware there is no earthly hope of reward. 

No case has ever been refused by me (and I am quite sure all 
my brethren in this district can say the same) because pay was 
doubtful or nonpayment sure. There is not a frequented road in 
this town, or adjoining it, which I have not traveled at all hours of 
the day and of the night, when the busy world were wrapt in slum- 



30 REMIKISCENCE& 

ber, on these errands of mercy. More than four thousand dollars, 
in my limited practice, and made up of the lowest charges, are to 
me of no value. Not taken from a surplus, which I could well 
spare, but kept out of my means of living, and often by those who 
might have paid the doctor as well as the merchant and the 
butcher. 

This sum, at the charges of the present day, even before the 
war, would have been nearly doubled ; if promptly paid and put at 
interest it would have doubled twice more. Although this is a 
very large portion of the labor of one's life to be lost or given 
away* I have no reason to suppose that my experience in this 
respect is any worse than that of neighboring physicians. 

This is no groundless speculation, but is a dead loss of so much 
hard earned cash, which nothing but the closest economy and ab- 
stinence from many of the conveniences enjoyed by most men of 
my standing, has enabled me to sustain. 

I have been told that we should make up these losses by charg- 
ing more to those who are able to pay. But one rich man has 
ever expressed to me his willingness to sustain his part of such an 
extra charge. Generally monied men look sharpest to their bills, 
and would rather claim a discount because their pay is so ready 
and so sure, or for the honor of having rich patrons. 

We are reminded of the pauper laws, and that we should take 
steps to secure pay for the poor, of the town or State, but many 
are the class of industrious poor, who pay their bills to others when 
in health, and no honorable physician is willing to shock the sensi- 
bilities of such patients, by manifesting anxiety about pay, or talk- 
ing of overseers and the poor-house. 

The advertising quack, or dealer in patent medicines, puts up his 
nostrums in thousands of packages or bottles, costing perhaps ten 
cents each, and sends them out with printed directions, but leaves 
the most difficult part of the physician's duty, to the chance guesses 
of his patients and their friends. These packages are sold at fifty 
cents or one dollar each, by agents all over the land, and used in 
chronic diseases and imaginary complaints, but when acute disease 
invades, like a strong man armed, it is, in nine-tenths of the cases, 
the regular physician, who is called from his bed at midnight to 
make his way through storms and darkness, to the bedside of the 
sufferer, to meet sickness, perhaps death, face to face ; often hastened 



REMINISCENCES. 31 

by injudicious quackery. I have been called at the last hour of 
life, when no object could have been in view, but that the subject 
might die the patient of a regular physician. 

The name of Spofford is riot new in the medical history of this 
district. Dr. Amos Spofford, my uncle, born in Rowley, Sept., 
1751, educated at Dummer, studied medicine with Dr. Sawyer, of 
Newbury, practiced in what is now Georgetown from about 1775 
to 1805. He was one of the original members of the Massachu- 
setts Medical Society, and was eminent in his profession. 

Dr. Isaac Spofford, born also in what was then Rowley, April 
10, 1750, studied medicine with Dr. James Brickett, of Haverhill, 
served as surgeon in tha army of the revolution, practiced in Bev- 
erly, and died there in early life. 

Dr. Moses D. Spofford, son of Dr. Amos, born Dec. 9, 1773, en- 
tered practice early with his father, survived him, in extensive 
practice, was struck with paralysis in 1830, died Nov. 31, 1832* 

Dr. Richard S. Spofford, son of Dr. Amos, born May 24, 1787, 
graduated at Harvard, commenced practice in Newburyport in 
1816, still survives, and does honor to the name and profession. 

Two of my own sons have been educated as physicians, and 
admitted members of the Massachusetts Medical Society. 

Friends have suggested to me that by a more exclusive attention 
to the study and practice of medicine, I might have attained to a 
more eminent standing in my profession, and accumulated more 
property, which is probably true; but many circumstances con- 
spired to govern and control my course. I had no distinguished 
relative or patron to point my course and lead me on in his path. 
With my advantages of education, it were folly to expect to lead 
in the profession, or rival those more favorably circumstanced. I 
had no taste for spending all my time among the sick, and much 
preferred the pen to the scalpel, and books to subjects for dissec- 
tion. 'Making it a matter of conscience to do my duty to all 
entrusted to my care, I have not been anxious to enlarge my circle 
of practice. Believing that I had other duties to perform in life, 
than those to the sick, I have exerted myself in favor of every 
improvement that came within my sphere and means, and during 
the early part of my professional life, any opportunity to devote 
my time and whatever talents I had to literature, would have been 
a welcome change, and my first connection with the periodical 



32 REMINISCENCES. 

press was influenced by this predilection, and though not profitable 
in a pecuniary view, yet I have never felt it in my heart to regret 
the connection, as it perhaps led to my two years' service in the 
Senate of Massachusetts, a service which was not performed chiefly 
on the railroads, but in assiduous attention at all hours of.each 
session, attending the hearings before committees, studying reports, 
and the volumes of the State Library. 

When I came to this town, the Merrimack Intelligencer was 
published in Haverhill, by Burrill & Hersey, who then had a 
book and job office on the river bank, just below the bridge. The 
paper had been published here several years. I remember it in 
the hands of the Aliens, and Burrill &-Greenough, who pub- 
lished here an edition of the Bible, the English Reader, and I think 
Watts' Psalms and Hymns, and this was for a time also connected 
with the post office acd a bookstore. I had sometimes contributed 
articles to the paper while at Hampstead, and this establishment 
was not entirely without its influence in drawing me into this 
vicinity. 

Soon after I came here, the newspaper was transferred to Peter 
N. Green, afterwards, by a change of name, Nathaniel Green, of 
the Boston Statesman, and in the progress of political events post- 
master of Boston, but at that time an ambitious and talented ap- 
prentice in the Intelligencer office, nearly of legal age. He started 
the paper as an ultra federal paper, but soon perceiving that the 
prospects of that party were on the wane, he made a complete 
somerset into the Democratic party, discontinued the Intelligencer, 
and in a few weeks issued another paper in another office, called 
the Essex Patriot. I was well acquainted with Green, and he 
agreed to .allow me a column each week to maintain my political 
views, he being of course at liberty to confute my arguments, but 
he soon found that this was no way to build up Democracy, and 
declined to continue the arrangement. 

In 1820, Mr. Green published his intention of removing the Pat- 
riot to Boston, on the first of the succeeding January. Whereupon 
Burrill & Hersey, having the best office in town, issued proposals 
for publishing the Haverhill Gazette, and I was engaged to write a 
prospectus for the paper, which may be seen on the first page of 
the Gazette for January 1, 1821. 

I frequently wrote other articles for the paper, which has been 



REMINISCENCES. 33 

published continuously to the present day. Green, instead of 
removing the Patriot to Boston as proposed, sold it to one Hastings, 
who commenced a fierce warfare upon the Gazette, of which, and 
even the continued existence of the Patriot, no notice was ever 
taken in the Gazette, and Hastings soon sold out paper and office 
to the Gazette concern, and entered the office as journeyman. 

In 1885 I became joint proprietor and editor of the Gazette, 
with John G. Whittier, the Quaker Poet. I was to control the 
political course of the paper, and he to advocate the cause of the 
slave, as he saw fit. This arrangement was not lasting. Edward 
Everett being nominated by the Whigs for Governor, was opposed 
by Mr. Whittier, on account of a speech of his in Congress, de- 
claring his willingness to shoulder his musket in support of the 
fugitive slave law. His course against Mr. Everett gave offence to 
ardent Whigs. Mr. "Whittier relinquished his interest in the paper, 
selling out to Mr. Harris, the printer and publisher. He being in- 
solvent, I was involved in deeper responsibilities, and should have 
been seriously embarrassed but for the timely assistance of political 
friends in Boston, Salem, Newbury port and Haverhill, including a 
Governor of the State and several members of Congress, whom I 
should be proud to name if it were proper. These friends, who 
thought my service as a writer of some value in the then pending 
Harrison election, contributed cash or commuted claims, to the 
amount of thirteen hundred dollars, for which certificates of shares 
in the concern were issued, which were nearly all of them ulti- 
mately relinquished to me, or those who have since labored to sus- 
tain the paper. 

In this connection I controlled the politics of the paper, and 
wrote its leading editorials for more than twenty years, and still 
continue to contribute articles frequently. My writings would 
constitute many volumes, and though generally political they have 
embraced nearly every subject of public interest during that 
long period. They are mostly my off-hand impressions, upon 
some prominent subject of interest. They have been written in 
haste, amid a thousand anxious cares. They have rather unbur- 
dened than taxed my mind. They have been hastily reviewed and 
corrected, but seldom or never rewritten. Though supporting 
Whig and Republican principles, I have often opposed both men 
and measures, never waiting to see who approved or disapproved 
5 



34 REMINISCENCES. 

of acts or speeches, before committing myself. On receiving Mr; 
Webster's speech of the seventh of March, 1850, I dispatched my 
article to the office with a prophecy that the speech (so unfortunate 
to him) had lost us the State of Massachusetts, and so it proved. 

I have received many private testimonials of approbation of my 
writings, from persons in whose taste and judgment I confide, and 
hope they will give me a'friendly hint to drop my pen when it is 
in danger of doing discredit to them or me. 

In the autumn of 1837 J had, as before alluded to, the fortune 
to be elected a member of the Senate of this State. It was during 
my terms there, 1838 and '39, that moneys were set aside to estab- 
lish or enlarge our school fund, which has now grown to two mil- 
lions of dollars. Originally intended, as the act declares, for the 
support of common schools, but which is now wholly perverted 
into other channels, or if a part of it finds its way to the towns 
and cities, or supports schools, a still larger sum is drawn from the 
pockets of the people to support committees, print reports, and 
sustain the machinery devised by those who use up the major part 
of the income of this great fund, for officers, lecturers, normal 
schools, and gratuities. 

I have frequently called the attention of the people to this 
abuse, but such has been the combination of interested officers and 
recipients of this public bounty, that it is of little avail to expose 
its injustice, till there is a turn in the tide, and the people see to it 
that the interest of two millions of dollars of their property is 
applied to educate their children, instead of supporting officers and 
select schools, and to lumber up the State-house with useless 
reports. 

Though a new member of the Senate, I was not a very young 
one, and sometimes ventured to advocate new ideas. 

At this time the old militia of Massachusetts had become a hiss- 
ing and a by-word. Commissioners had been appointed at a pre- 
vious session to revise the militia laws, and a bill was reported, of 
sixty pages, converting all male citizens from eighteen to forty^five 
into soldiers, with sufficient penalties for neglect of drilling and 
musters to creato an army of 150,000 men. This had passed to 
be engrossed, when a movement, originating in the Senate, and in 
which I bore some humble part, with James Alvord and Samuel E. 
Goodridge (Peter Parley), defeated the bill on its passage to be 






REMINISCENCES. 35 

enacted in the House. On the failure of this expensive plan, I 
offered an order to instruct the military committee to bring in a 
bill abolishing entirely the old system, and establishing a force of 
10,000 men, with arms and a small bounty, to induce those of 
military taste to enlist, uniform and perform duty to the credit of 
themselves and the State. This bill obtained eleven votes on its 
introduction, and was adopted the next year, and continued in use 
down to the war of the rebellion. 

As I have borne some humble part in creating those facilities, 
without which this town could not have attained its present stand- 
ing as a manufacturing town and convenient place of residence, I 
may spend a few words in stating their progress. 

During the session of the Legislature in 1850, a majority of the 
voters of what is now Groveland, petitioned the Legislature to set 
off one half of the inhabitants, valuation and territory, from Brad- 
ford to be a separate town. In this petition the other half of the 
town concurred, and the division was equitably and amicably set- 
tled, and took effect in April of that year. In this division I took 
an active part in the full belief that it might be convenient and 
reputable, and not very unreasonable, as each town at the separa- 
tion was as large as both towns in 1800, when they sent two rep- 
resentatives to the General Court. 

Many of my ancestors in this country have been mechanics ard 
mill owners. I inherited from them, I believe, a predilection for 
the rush of the waterfall and the whirl of machinery, to aid the 
work of human hands so easy and so beautifully, without the 
sweat and labor of animal exertion. I had often regretted the 
useless waste of water at Chelmsford, on the Concord and Merri- 
mack before Lowell and Lawrence were thought o£ and I had 
many thoughts and plans of locating myself in each of those cities 
at the time of their early rise, feeling that to witness the growth 
of a city where I had often traveled over a desolate region, would 
be much to my taste. But circumstances have rooted me strongly 
in this place. But though never residing in either of the new 
cities of the Merrimack, I have diligently watched their rise and 
progress, and consider it a fortunate circumstance that I have 
resided in their vicinity, often visited them, and seen canals exca- 
vated and dams erected, whose deep foundation will never again 
be laid bare till the river shall cease to flow.* 



36 REMINISCENCES. 

The ponds and stream called Johnson's creek figured in the early 
history of the town, and much interest was felt in putting mills in 
operation upon its falls. Still, its use was very imperfect, and I 
remember when the grists used to be piled up in Carleton'% Mill, 
waiting the slow process of grinding ten or twelve bushels a day, 
where now, by the improvements introduced by Mr. Hale, its intel- 
ligent and enterprising proprietor, a thousand wheels are whirling, 
and two hundred hands employed. 

At the decease of Mr. Aaron Parker, many years sole proprietor 
of the land and water power, now owned by Mr. Hale, and occu- 
pied by him by two extensive woolen factories, it is within my own 
knowledge that the grist mill and fulling mill with near torty feet 
fall, and all the rights of the ponds and stream above, were ap- 
praised at five hundred dollars. I wrote the will which distribut- 
ed his large property among many legatees, none of whom were 
willing to receive it in their division at that time, till the adminis- 
trator, A. J. Tenney, Esq., in behalf of himself and me, offered to 
pay for it that sum in cash. 

The saw-mill brook, which flows across the town near the line of 
the railroad, was in use for that purpose more than one hundred 
years ago. 

In 1862, on commencing operations on that stream, I ascertained 
by Mr. William Balch, then ninety-five years old, that he recollect- 
ed having seen a saw mill in operation at the fall where we were 
then at work ; two women then living, Mrs. Samuel Greenough 
and Mrs. Joseph Rollins, recollected the mill in use, but every 
vestige of it had disappeared, except a small part of the dam, long 
before Aug. 26, 1862, when the first earth was removed for the 
commencement of the present mill, and the first board was sawed 
there January 23, 1863. 

At the commencement of operations there, the dense forest had 
fully resumed its ancient domain, and many weeks' work were done 
before the cars, passing within twenty rods, were visible. The 
factories fully occupying the larger stream, the mills are gone down, 
and at this time the sites where at least four saw mills, and four 
run of grist mills, at different times served the inhabitants of the 
town, are silent, and the mills erected on this small stream, being 
a saw mill, grist mill, planing and circular saw, are the only mills 
in use in town for those purposes. In their erection I have borne a 



REMINISCENCES. 37 

prominent part, and they are now owned by myself and my eldest 
son, Charles W. Spofford. The old mill stood on the dam ; the 
canal which cuts off the peninsular, and nearly doubles the fall, 
was cut by us in 1862. 

I have in my hands an instrument executed the 23d day ot March, 
1770, signed by Daniel Tenney, Nathan Hardy, and Ephraim 
Hardy, by which they bind themselves to each other, to erect 
a saw-mill on the said saw-mill brook, at the fal-s near the house 
of Ebenezer Jewett, between that time and the first of November 
ensuing. This is doubtless the date of the dam remaining there, 
on which the aforesaid mill was in operation for many years, built 
during the summer of 1770. 

Business has greatly changed in this town in fifty years. Some 
kinds have been nearly discontinued ; other kinds have greatly 
increased. There were then four tanneries in the town, owned by 
Wftliam Parker, Aaron Parker, Phineas Hardy, and Thomas Sa- 
vary. All of the owners are passed away, and their places of 
business are silent. A new tanyard has since been started by Na- 
thaniel Parker and Benjamin McLaughlin, and is continued by Mr. 
Parker to this day. 

Carriages were then made here by George Bachelder, and chaises 
trimmed and harnesses made by Samuel Chisemore, and by John 
Morse, long since discontinued. 

Shoemaking was considered a large business in this town in 1817, 
though a shoe factory or manufactory was scarcely known. It was 
earned on in this village in several small shops of scarcely more 
than eight by ten feet dimensions. 

When in 1833 I erected a building twenty-seven feet by fifteen, 
two stories high, I doubled the shop-room in the neighborhood. 
These have now increased to seven or eight large factories. To- 
bacco had been extensively manufactured here by Moses Parker, 
Win. Greenough, and Niles Tilden, and was carried on in 1817 by 
Silas Hopkinson, Wm. Hopkinson, and Bailey Greenough. 

The clothing business was then carried on here extensively by 
Benjamin Morse, Benjamin Morse, Jr., and Retire Morse. The fin- 
ishing shop was on the road at " Morse's Corner," but a fulling mill 
on the creek just above the railroad, was in operation when I came 
here. I recollect also seeing a saw-mill in operation there in 1797. 
It did good business, but it was obstructed by tides, and sometimes 



38 ftiEtolNlSCENCBfi. 



neary covered by freshets. Moses Parker still had a store an 
many articles, the remnants of an extensive trade for many years* 
Peter Parker and William Greenough had large variety stores, and 
Benjamin Parker and Stephen Parker kept assortments of groceries 
and English goods. 

Heavy articles were brought here by the river from Boston and 
Newburyport, and a packet sailed regularly from Haverhill and 
this place to New York, commanded for some years by Capt. Burr, 
an efficient commander* whose mysterious disappearance in that 
city, supposed by many to have been murdered for the cash he 
carried to purchase flour, was long lamented. All stores then sold 
spirits, and many sold little else, except the articles painted on the 
shutters, rum brandy, gin, sugar, tea, coffee, molasses and tobacco. 
Yet the people were not all inebriates ; nearly all took spirits occa- 
sionally. For a person to be disguised with liquor was as disreput* 
able then as now. Those who had character and principles and no 
preternatural thirst for liquor, carefully guarded against excess. 
Dr. Moses D. Spofford made himself remarkable by refusing even 
to taste spirits during his whole life, but used them in medicines as 
other physicians. Of Mr. Perry, I take pleasure in stating that 
long before the temperance reformation, which almost banished 
spirits from good society, he, nearly alone, practiced total absti- 
nence, and I never saw him accept on any occasion even of a social 
glass of wine, and he was early and active in advocating the cause. 
In that reform I also took an early and active part, by public ad- 
dresses and private individual remonstrance, never allowing myself 
to refrain from dealing plainly in private with those patients whose 
diseases or accidents were caused by intemperance, and, as example 
goes before precept, I have abstained from the use of spirits as a 
beverage the last thirty-seven years, and the occasions to use it as 
a medicine for myself or others, have been few and far between. 

While the clergyman, the teacher, and the merchant, can take 
their vacation for a month each summer, and make arrangements 
to have their business go on or wait for them, without harm or 
loss, the physician is expected to be always on hand, and cannot 
absent himself but at his peril and loss ; but unwilling to serve a 
term of ifty years without a vacation, I have for a very few times 
absented myself for a week or ten days. In 1833 I visited Albany 
and rode thence to Schenectady in a steam car, the second day a 



A 



REMINISCENCES. 39 

locomotive ever drew a train in this country. In 1840, I visited 
Washington, and witnessed the inauguration of Mr. Harrison, shook 
hands with the President in the White House, saw Clay, and J. Q. 
Adams, and Benton, and Calhoun, and Buchanan, visited Mount 
Vernon, and stood by the tomb of Washington. In 1850 I visited 
Victoria's regions, viewed Montreal with interest as the scene of 
the suffering of prisoners captured in the old French and Indian 
wars, descended the St. Lawrence 180 miles, in the magnificent 
stenmer the John Munn, stood on the battlements of Quebec, and 
walked over the plains of Abraham, and viewed the monument on 
the spot where Wolfe, the conquerer of that city, fell in Sept., 1759. 

I have wished much to visit Niagara and the great West, but 
confinement to business and regard to the expense have prevented, 
and I have given up all expectation of ever seeing them. I have 
been a constant attendant on the ancient congregational orthodox 
service, in all the places where I have resided, ever since I was ten 
years old. Myself and wife, with six others, were admitted to this 
church Nov. 7, 1819. Of those who were members before, or ad- 
mitted with us, but few remain. I have bo bigoted attachment to 
any denomination. I have not adhered to that with which my 
fathers worshipped, because they did so, but because, whatever indi- 
viduals or local churches may have done, I do not see that others 
as a whole do any better, and all other things being equal, I prefer 
that religious connection which was earliest, and has done the most 
to make New England and the country what they are. 

It is the crowning blessing of this day, that some years beyond 
the " Golden " period so often noticed, I still share the eve- 
ning of life, with the partner of my youth, who had the firmness 
and temerity to leave the shelter of a well stored father's house, 
to take her chance with me among strangers, with no means but 
my untried profession, but among strangers in Hampstead, and in 
this town, we have always found the means of support, and en- 
joyed the best of society, and found the best of friends. To her 
care, industry and economy, though not learned, like my own, in 
the hard school of necessity, it is in a great part due, that wo 
have maintained a decent standing among you, brought up a large 
family, and been able to pay all honest debts, and it is my earnest 
wish and ardent prayer, that I may share with her, the last hours 
of life. 



40 REMINISCENCES. 

Of the people resident in town when I came, there were about 
700, I think but about 80 remain. 

Of the married couples in town, then numbering 106, but 4 
remain : Myself, Nath. Ladd, Wm. Griffith, and Thomas Burbank, 
with our wives. Ezekiel Saunders and wife, then resident in 
Georgetown, now resident here, have been married 64 years. 

Of the home of my youth, the remote farm in a corner of 
Georgetown, as it was, I retain most interesting recollections. 
With the people of that town, my many relatives there, my youth- 
ful companions, and the numerous pupils of my schools there, I 
have always cherished the kindest social relations. 

To push out into the world, without money or influential friends, 
at twenty-two years of age, with such a preparatory education as 
I had been able to obtain at the fireside, in the town school, and 
under private tuition, to pass three years in professional study, and 
find a place of business among strangers, was a task truly discour- 
aging, but hope, and trust in that Providence which always 
blesses and prospers well directed and persevering efforts, led me 
on. Of the kind partiality of my teacher, Dr. Whiton, and the 
people of Winchendon, who extended to me kind and urgent invi- 
tatious to settle with them, though most of them have passed 
away, I entertain the most grateful remembrance. 

To the people of Hampstead, and Groveland and vicinity, I have 
been under infinite obligation. Of the departed, 1 would express 
my high estimate of their thousand acts of confidence and kind- 
ness; to the living, my grateful thanks. 

To the gentlemen of the clergy, Messrs. Howard and Hinckley, 
and the choir of singers, who have contributed so much to render 
this occasion worthy of such an audience, I tender my grateful 
thanks. It is a satisfaction to know that this place, noted for its 
musical taste and talent long years ago, still retains its former rep- 
utation. We only regret that Hardy, and Parker, and Atwood, 
and Bacon, who so long led, and added interest to musical per- 
formances, could not have remained, to share with you the pleasure 
of blending your voices with the tones of that beautiful instrument, 
which adds so much to the interest of this and other occasions. 
May it blend with the voices of those as well qualified as those 
here to-night, at the end of the next half century. 



I 



